Opening Day 2008 finds tomboy freshman Ryan Walsh cutting class to catch the game at Wrigley Field. Since that day also marks the 5th anniversary of her father’s sudden death, Ryan (who is NOT named after Ryne Sandberg) decides to honor her dad by returning to the place where they spent countless afternoons.

While there, she meets up with fellow Diehard Cubs Fan and classmate Nick Crowley, who has just moved to Chicago from Wisconsin (where he decidedly WAS NOT a Brewers fan.) As the teens develop a baseball relationship, they gradually learn each other’s deep down secrets and realize that they are both staging their own comebacks this year. However, as the Cubs fans’ traditional cry of “Wait ‘til Next Year” changes into “Next Year Is Here!”, Ryan realizes she has picked the wrong year to bargain against the team.

Roni hates summer school. What could possibly be more boring than listening to Professor Bloom drone on and on about local wildflowers?

Naturally, and quite against her will, Roni gets Brian for her field trip partner. To avoid looking for samples of skunk cabbage, the two decide to explore a cave hidden on the bluff. Inside, they find a raving lunatic who claims to have been attacked by a ghost. Summer school is no longer boring. It sure is getting dangerous, though. Join Roni and Brian as they hunt for a ghost, get trapped in a cave, discover a skull, and try to avoid getting killed.

Skullduggery, by Pete Hautman and Mary Logue, is part of the Bloodwater Mysteries series.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Her name is Naomi Porter.
She lives in Tarrytown New Jersey.
She is the adopted daughter of two loving parents. Her dad is a writer and her mom is a photographer.
Someone named James rode in the ambulance with her.
Her head hurts very badly.

And that’s about it. Well, sort of. She can answer most of the questions the doctors keep asking her. However, there is the little matter of what year it is. When asked that question, Naomi automatically answers 2000. But wait, that can’t be right! That would make her twelve years old, and she just doesn’t feel twelve years old.

And she’s right. She’s not twelve, she’s sixteen. She can drive a car. She has a steady boyfriend named Ace. Her best friend is Will. She is co-editor of the high school yearbook. Her parents are divorced and her mother has remarried. And she has a baby half-sister.

But Naomi can’t remember any of those things!

How would someone cope with all that? Find out in the new book by the author of Elsewhere, Gabrielle Zevin, in Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac.

Have you ever driven by a small race track out in the country and wondered what goes on there? From the racers to the track owner to the mechanics, Will Weaver’s Saturday Night Dirt gives one day in the life of a small race track struggling to stay in business and the drivers hoping to find racing sponsors or simply keep their cars in one piece.

Mel, Melody Walters, runs Headwaters Speedway with her dad, Johnny Walters. The track hasn’t been doing well but on this particular Saturday Mel decides to call around to try to convince drivers who have seen their races at other tracks rained out to come to Headwaters. It’s a gamble as she can’t be sure it won’t rain at her track and the drivers who have come from miles away to race won’t be disappointed.

Trace Bonham can’t seem to get along with his mechanic, Larry. Trace’s father is a successful farmer with lots of money to spend on his car. He wants Trace to be a successful driver, but he can’t seem to get his car to perform as well as his father thinks it should. Is Larry tinkering with the car in order to slow him down or is Trace just not the best driver for his Street Stock Chevy?
Beau Kim is hoping he can keep his car, most of which he has stuck together from parts found in junk yards, together through the night’s race. He knows he probably shouldn’t race with the sketchy state of his car’s roll cage, but he can’t resist the urge to get his car on the track.

Packed full of realistic details on the cars and the races, Saturday Night Dirt crams all this action into one day that could launch the careers of the drivers and get Headwaters Speedway out of the red or end in huge wrecks and lackluster finishes for the drivers and a rainout that could bring an end to Headwaters Speedway.